This episode will be a little different. I know you’re used to me having a guest with me all the time. But every once in a while it’s good to talk about this program and update you on where we are, what we are doing and why.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Greetings, everyone. Thank you for joining me in this episode. Thank you for joining me in this episode called How Are We Doing? This episode may be a little bit different, and I know you're used to have to me having a guest on all the time, but every once in a while, it's good to talk about this program and update you on where we are.
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Jonathan Guerrero
First, let's start with a history of the Fatherhood Challenge and how it got its start.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Many years ago, i went through a crisis of faith that comes for each of us at least once in our life, often twice. Some refer to it as the dark night of the soul.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Many run from it. I ran straight into it. it was triggered by the It was triggered by the death of my mom. my dad had been missing out My dad had been missing out of my life for many, many years.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And by then it carried so many wounds. When you add that to the trauma I carried from growing up in an abusive home, the death of my mom was the turning point that sent me spiraling down into a crisis of faith, beating at the door of heaven, demanding answers in anger and in bitterness.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I threatened to go somewhere else for my answers if I did not receive a timely answer. And I didn't bluff. I went to the dark side. That journey nearly cost me and my family and my life a few times.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But due to a strong praying wife who understood the spiritual warfare that was happening, God intervened and I had a direct encounter and intervention by God where he restored me.
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Jonathan Guerrero
As I was ready, he answered my hard questions.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Not long after that, my wife and I were driving and we were talking about When I made a comment that I thought was that I wasn't a good father, she was quiet and she didn't say anything.
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Jonathan Guerrero
the next day we The next day, out of the blue, she said that I should start a podcast. I thought it was very strange and out of character for her to suggest something like that.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So just to see where she was coming from, I said, well, suppose I were to start a podcast. What is it you think that I would have to talk about?
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Jonathan Guerrero
I was really, really curious why she would even bring that that but why she would even bring that up. Because there was just something very, very odd about yeah the fact that she would say that. There was something odd about the way she was saying it. The timing of it was off. Everything was off. It just...
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Jonathan Guerrero
It just wasn't something that she would typically say.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Her answer was fatherhood. Her answer took me took the wind out of me, and I spent the next few days processing that conversation.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So over those days, as I would drive, I would just ponder and ponder and ponder, trying to figure out why, why, why, why why would she say something like that?
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Jonathan Guerrero
What would possess her to say something so out of character like that? I just could not figure it out.
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Jonathan Guerrero
One day, I just let myself open up to the possibility that maybe... Just maybe it wasn't my wife speaking, but instead it was the Holy Spirit speaking through her.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The minute I let that thought enter my head, I felt the shift. Maybe I was being called by God to start a podcast on fatherhood.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And maybe my wife was simply the mouthpiece to deliver that message.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So as I mentioned before, as soon as I allowed that thought to enter my head, I felt a shift. I felt a physical physical shift in the van. And what I was experiencing was the physical presence of God in my van.
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Jonathan Guerrero
That's what that shift was. Right away when I recognized it, I went into prayer. I started praying immediately. And God and I had a very, very blunt conversation to say the very least.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I told God that I knew he was trying to call me, but that I had absolutely no desire and absolutely no interest in doing this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I love podcasts. I've always listened to them ever since podcasts started coming out. I've enjoyed the programs. I enjoyed the fact that I can be driving somewhere and learn, or I can go for a walk and learn something new. I've always appreciated that about podcasts.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But just to be honest, podcasts are a lot of work. I knew that much, even though I had never produced a podcast at that time, i was not looking forward to the work that was going to be involved in doing something like this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And it just really didn't interest me at all. And that's exactly what I told God.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But I told him also that I remember very, very plainly what he did for me. I remember that time when I was going through the dark night of the soul or my crisis of faith, as some call it.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I remember how God never abandoned me. He never shamed me. He never rejected me. But he made it very, very, very, very clear that where my life was was not something that he was happy with.
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Jonathan Guerrero
He never condemned me. He pointed out all of the lies that I had believed. And he instead, he spoke truth into my life. He forgave my sins, and he gave me a pathway back to redemption, to being restored, to my true identity and to my true purpose.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And not only did he give me back everything that I thought for sure I had lost, but I had gained so much more for that. And God was trying to bless me one more time with something that I couldn't understand.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And that's where we were. So I told God, you know what? I remember what he did for me. I remember how he saved me. And I acknowledge that we were trying to grow a friendship.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And sometimes, sometimes friends do things for their friends that they don't want to do simply because it is their friend asking them to do it. I would reluctantly do what he asked.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Then God gave me a vision. It was intense. It showed me why he was asking me to do this. I saw so many broken homes like you can't believe. I saw families.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I saw fatherless children who grew up to hate him as a result. I saw wives that were rejected, that were alone,
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Jonathan Guerrero
left alone um that had faced so much hardship because they had broken husbands. And that's just besides the missing fathers that resulted from all of those broken homes.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I saw a crime, crime like you can't believe. I saw horrific violence that went generations deep because of addiction patterns.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I could feel the way it was making God grieve and how much he loved and cared for the fatherless. He cared for all of the widows that were, that resulted from all of this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And he cared for all of the women that were without husbands because it finally took its toll on the marriage. I saw how he cared even for the men who had left the marriage, longing for them to be restored, longing for them to have a true understanding of what love is, of who God really, really is.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is what I saw. And it was just piled on and piled on and piled on, And it was overwhelming. It got to a point where so intense, I was feeling like I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't understand how God was processing all of this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This was on his mind.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So then we were back to this decision. I decided that I would make a deal with God because then my emotions over over this whole thing i was that I was feeling unable to do this. I was feeling inadequate to carry out this mission. I didn't know the first thing about creating a podcast. I didn't know anything. I had such a steep learning curve.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So I brought all of this to God and I made a deal with him.
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Jonathan Guerrero
He would have to own this. The fatherhood challenge would be belong to him. This was his doing. This was his desire. So he would have to take complete ownership over it.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This would mean that he would be responsible for opening the doors that he wanted me to go through and closing the doors that he did not want me to go through. God would be responsible for all of the training that I would need to accomplish this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This includes providing all of the resources that I would need to learn, and sometimes putting the right people in my path or in my life who could teach me all of the things that the resources that I found could not teach me.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And I can tell you, looking back on this now, i can tell you with absolute certainly ah absolute certainty, is so as sure as you're hearing my voice right now, that God has kept his end of the promise and kept his end of the deal.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The very first episode of the Fatherhood Challenge, which was the pilot, was released October 6, 2021.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Since then, it has grown from being more than just a podcast to being a syndicated radio program on Life Talk Radio and Family First Radio Network, and other networks have expressed interest in airing the program.
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Jonathan Guerrero
It is still a podcast, as well as being distributed on all of the major podcast apps, such as Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and GoodPods, just to name a few.
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Jonathan Guerrero
One thing about me has changed since the first episode aired. I mentioned earlier that I was not interested in starting a podcast when God first called me to do this work.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Now, not only have i grown to love this work, but it has become ah it it has become very personal for me. When I bring a guest on, they have to meet a certain standard.
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Jonathan Guerrero
They have to be ah subject matter expert in their field and their values must align with the program. There is no wiggle room for this. There is no exception to this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And the reason this standard is so high is because of you. I owe that high standard to you as the listener. If I know more than the guest does, then there's really no point in having them on because I can just do the episode myself.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But I love learning. And I do learn from every single guest that I get to have a conversation with. I'm a dad of two boys and a husband. I can say that my work on this program has taught me many things that have helped me to become a better dad to my boys and a better husband to my wife.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So this gives me greater confidence that it is doing the same for you.
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Jonathan Guerrero
It also gives me growing confidence that we are learning. It also gives me confidence that we are learning and growing together. We still have work to do, though.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The fatherhood challenge has never, was never meant to be a light, warm, fuzzy program for topics like how to build a playground set in your backyard or how to say affirmations.
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Jonathan Guerrero
We don't do that kind of stuff. We cover topics like porn addiction, having a healthy marriage, how to find forgiveness in a dark past. Every episode ends with a challenge.
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Jonathan Guerrero
we challenge to debt We challenge dads to go into the dark places of their life where they are held captive to addictions, where they are told that they are a joke, that they are worthless, that they are unappreciated.
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Jonathan Guerrero
We challenge dads to invite the Holy Spirit into those dark places to shine blinding light on the lies that they have been told so that the Holy Spirit can help dads to find their true identity and purpose and come out of the darkness with unstoppable purpose.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Most topics we cover tend to do well, but there are ones that have received negative responses and those Those topics have been teaching your child to pray and two episodes on abortion.
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Jonathan Guerrero
All three of those episodes were covered with care and with compassion. This feedback shows that there is still evil in this world, and there are those who believe that they are doing good embracing this evil.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But God still loves those who love abortion just as much as he loves the babies who have been aborted. And God still loves those who hate prayer and teaching little ones how to pray.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So we will keep working to reach those who need the message in this program the most. There are dads who are trying so hard and they are fighting every single day to become better dads, better husbands, better men for their families and for their communities.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And I want to personally say thank you to those dads for not giving up when the media and the world is against them. It's so much easier nowadays to give up, to just walk away.
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Jonathan Guerrero
It's easier to do that than it has ever been when things get really, really tough. We see this portrayed in movies and shows and commercials and the news.
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Jonathan Guerrero
like the late It's like the latest fashion trend. Leaving is ah is a fashion trend.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But there are real men who are resisting this, who are fighting against this trend, who are stayers, who are workers. Some of these men have done the hard work to overcome addictions, to forgive those who have hurt them in the past, and to be present physically, emotionally, and spiritually for their families.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The world owes these men a great, great debt of appreciation and respect. And if the fatherhood challenge has reached and encouraged just one, just one of these dads, then it was worth all of the work put into this program.
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Jonathan Guerrero
While there are a small handful of media networks like Life Talk Radio and Family First Radio that care passionately about fatherhood, most networks aren't interested in talking about fatherhood or they want large sums of money from producers who create content about fatherhood.
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Jonathan Guerrero
These producers already put out a lot of their own money and to program into producing the program. These things aren't cheap to produce. This is frustrating because we have so much chaos and so much tragedy in the world around us.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Just turn on the news. And most of it is rooted in the fatherhood crisis that God tried to warn us about in Malachi 4.6. You know what I'm talking about.
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Jonathan Guerrero
That scripture text that talks about turning the hearts of fathers to the children and the hearts of fathers of children to of the hearts of children to their fathers. And then God says, lest I strike the land with a curse.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Yeah, that one, that scripture text, the one we like to skip over and don't really like to understand the meaning of, especially the curse part. The curse part is like, who wants to talk about curses?
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Jonathan Guerrero
Anybody? Anybody want to spend their time talking about curses? No, curses aren't fun, but they are important, especially when God has something to say about them, because this speaks to the time that we are living in now.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And this is when this message was also meant for. It was not just meant for thousands of years ago. Yes, it was referring to Jesus, And it's also referring in time to where we are living now.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Because the curses that are experiencing now are the very curses that God was hoping for us to avoid. Had we taken this warning seriously? It was a message of fatherhood. Why is fatherhood so important anyway?
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Jonathan Guerrero
Because it is created in the image of God. The way we judge our fathers is the same way that we judge God.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is why it's so important. It's as simple as that. If you wonder why society is such a mess, if you wonder why we have the mass shootings that we have now, if you wonder why the prisons are full, you can trace it back to this.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Because we did not take that warning seriously. And we laugh at those who try to bring attention to such a cause. We dismiss them. We think they're weird.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And we wish that they would just shut up and go away. Because we want to talk about something else. We're really not interested in talking about fatherhood. And we're really not interested in talking about what's going in the home.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Especially what's going on in our own homes. Because that might require us to do something different. And we don't want to change. Because change isn't comfortable. It's often not pleasant.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is where we are at. This is Malachi 4.6.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The news networks are far more interested and excited by reporting tragic results that are born out of the fatherhood crisis. that they are talking They are more interested in that than they are talking about what's going on in the homes that's contributing to the tragedies that we see on the news.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And they are responsible for that. Let's face it, violence, police responses are all far more exciting things to talk about, and they're far more exciting for ratings than promoting stable families.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Am I wrong about that? And Jesus definitely can't be involved in the conversation at all because he's too controversial. And it would mean that we would have to change and become like him.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And we couldn't continue what we do in the dark.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Did I hit a nerve there? Is that not true? This is why you won't hear about it anywhere else. This is why no one wants to talk about it.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is the mentality of the media.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And this is what programs like the Fatherhood Challenge are up against.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So, what are we doing now? in So, what are we doing now? We are still producing full length audio episodes for radio and podcast.
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Jonathan Guerrero
That will not change, but there will be short video content that will be produced. Some of this will range from encouraging to challenging posts, and some of it will be announcements of things to come.
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Jonathan Guerrero
The video top content can be found on the Fatherhood Challenge youtube the Fatherhood Challenge YouTube channel, as well as our Facebook, Instagram, and Patreon pages.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Also, if you ever want to get caught up and know what's going on um the for the latest episodes, you can just go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com. That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Your support for the fatherhood challenge is greatly needed. This program talks specifically about topics that are often the root of problems. So they aren't popular topics.
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Jonathan Guerrero
If our goal was to go viral, fatherhood is not a good topic. This poses all kinds of challenges for getting our message out because there's an effort by the media to ignore and restrict truthful content about fatherhood.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Oh, yes, there is content out there about fatherhood that does exist, but it's surface level content. It does not challenge dads to go to the root of their problems.
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Jonathan Guerrero
it does it does not read It does not address addictions. It does not address things from past generations that are holding dads back. It does not actually help dads to become free from what's holding them back.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And it does not plug them into the source of the power that they need, the power that only the Holy Spirit can bring, that only Jesus can bring. Other programs typically avoid that as a solution.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And instead, they give dad solutions to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and solve their own problems. As if that's a thing.
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Jonathan Guerrero
That's more like giving them a treatment than giving them an actual cure. Very, very dishonest.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is why what we're doing becomes so much more important.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This makes your support even more important if we want to help families become stronger and more stable. There are many ways you can help. Financial support is always needed.
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Jonathan Guerrero
financial support is always needed and always appreciated. Because as I said before, producing the father challenge is not cheap. Any podcast takes quite a bit of money to actually produce and to do well.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So those are, those resources are always appreciated. And there are several ways like our website. There's also a Patreon page where you can do this because let's be honest,
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Jonathan Guerrero
There are also other ways that are just as helpful, like sharing the program or specific resources mentioned on the program. This not only helps to make others aware of the program, but it shares those resources mentioned on this program so families can actually be helped by those resources.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So in closing, I just want to say how much each of you listening mean to me and this program. I know that a lot of the topics that are covered in this program aren't fun.
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Jonathan Guerrero
In fact, I'll just be honest, and we can just admit that some of the topics we cover are a bit awkward and uncomfortable. And that's okay to admit that. But they are crafted carefully with the intention of improving your quality of life, bringing truth, and bringing real joy and freedom into your life and into your family.
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Jonathan Guerrero
No one wants to be a failure. Dads want to be successful. I have not met a dad that ah that doesn't actually want to be a successful dad, that does not want to be a grateful dad.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Many times the failures are rooted in shame and rooting it and rooted in lies that they believed. And maybe it has made them not the best dad in the world, but I have not met a dad that just wants to sit and stay there.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Every dad I've known and talked to, if there a way if there was a way out, if there was a way to improve, if there was a way to grow, every dad would choose that option.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is why the Fatherhood Challenge is so important. The mission and purpose of the Fatherhood Challenge is turning the hearts of fathers to their children.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Every single episode produced is measured against this standard, and it is not released unless it contributes towards that mission and purpose.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Your support also helps this program achieve that purpose. so that So for that, I want to say a heartfelt thank you. If you've been listening to this program long enough, you know the drill.
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Jonathan Guerrero
How do we always end every single episode? We end it with a challenge. So here is my heartfelt challenge to you.
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Jonathan Guerrero
I hinted at it earlier. If you aren't in therapy, do it. Do it now. I've learned this from personal experience. Don't just find any therapist.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Find a good Christian therapist who will pray with you before sessions, who will challenge you to go into those dark places in your life that you want to run from.
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Jonathan Guerrero
A good therapist will carefully walk with you into those dark places and invite the Holy Spirit to sit with you there to speak truth and love into those places and personally heal and restore you to your true identity and purpose just as Jesus loves you.
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Jonathan Guerrero
And Jesus will come into that place with you as well, and he will forgive you. He will build you up personally. This was my own personal experience.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Find a therapist who will do all of that work with you. Don't settle for any other kind of therapist. It is the difference between being cured or simply seeking treatment for ongoing symptoms.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is my challenge to you. I realize that for some of you, that is a generational barrier because there was a time when seeing a therapist was seen as taboo. If you even were seeing a therapist, you didn't talk about it because it made you seem really, really weak.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Now we've learned differently. Now we've learned that they are essential for our ongoing mental health.
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Jonathan Guerrero
But my challenge is more about giving you a resource, another resource that isn't just going to be something that you need, like taking a pill. If you take pills for, let's say high blood pressure, the odds are you're going to be on that pill for the rest of your life. It is a treatment for your high blood pressure.
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Jonathan Guerrero
it is not actually a permanent cure to where you no longer need that pill. And this is why I'm giving the challenge that I'm giving to you. Find a therapist who will actually walk with you, invite the Holy Spirit into that dark place with you, and who will bring Jesus into that moment and provide you with a permanent cure.
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Jonathan Guerrero
When you come out of that place, you will come out with a cure. You will come out with the best friend in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit who will walk with you the rest of your life.
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Jonathan Guerrero
Where you can trust him because you've been in the darkest places with him. You can go in the simplest places with him too. And know that he will always be there because you've personally experienced him.
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Jonathan Guerrero
This is what I want for you.
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Jonathan Guerrero
So as I close, this time for real, I am going to land this plane. I just want to thank you so much. I want to thank you. I want to personally, personally thank you so much for listening to the Fatherhood Challenge and for all of your support.
